Posted
by
timothyon Thursday January 17, 2013 @11:43AM
from the life-on-the-margins dept.

First time accepted submitter singinho writes "In times of political turmoil, operators are caught in the middle, between the wishes of the regime and the communications needs of the public. Orange exec Marc Rennard explains how he is forced to risk the lives of his employees." Companies operating with the blessing of any particular regime end up in some interesting predicaments; trying to keep communications open in a place like Mali (one of the places Rennard oversees) must make for some exciting work days for the guys in the field.

America's answering machine:We would love to come liberate you, but our last 2 liberation actions from evil groups didn't go so well. We miss the days of the grateful Filipinos, Germans, French, Polish, Japanese, Koreans, and Kuwaitis. Please leave a message, and we will get back to you when our population has the stomach for war. BEEP!

That's still nicer than when someone answers the phone. The guy on the recieving end of the "Liberation Hotline" seems to have developed a drinking problem in the last couple years. Something about an air head-spring, then he degrades into a long string of obscenities wtih some random nouns thrown in for good measure.

I think you looked up the number of the "Libation Hotline" not the "Liberation Hotline"

Oh yeah, you guys are all about the liberation. The US government goes to war for its own reasons, and then dresses it up with words like "liberation" and "democracy" to sell it to gullible, gung-ho twerps like you. The problem with folks like you is that you assume the rest of the world is as stupid, ill-informed, myopic, easily-distracted and short-memoried as the average USAian.

You assume they are as ignorant as you are regarding America's evil history of toppling peaceful regimes, undermining democracie

easily-distracted and short-memoried as the average USAian.The term is American, see later you use the word America...America's evil history to name the nation you are talking about, ergo the term to describe people from that nation is American.America's evil history of toppling peaceful regimes, undermining democracies, assassinating legitimate heads of state,Oliver Stone, is that you?I love your revisionist history show on Showtime, haven't laughed that hard in weeks.

And what country are you from? Name one country that has not engaged in "toppling peaceful regimes, undermining democracies, assassinating legitimate heads of state, waging illegitimate war and generally just fucking things up and killing thousands just for the sake of funnelling money into the right pockets" for thousands of years. If you want to hold us (America) responsible for every action our country has been engaged in, I would wager that our 250 year history is nothing compared to the rampant blood

And what country are you from? Name one country that has not engaged in "toppling peaceful regimes, undermining democracies, assassinating legitimate heads of state, waging illegitimate war and generally just fucking things up and killing thousands just for the sake of funnelling money into the right pockets" for thousands of years. If you want to hold us (America) responsible for every action our country has been engaged in, I would wager that our 250 year history is nothing compared to the rampant bloodshed, Feudalism, and barbaric nature of 95% of the planet.

And what country are you from? Name one country that has not engaged in "toppling peaceful regimes, undermining democracies, assassinating legitimate heads of state, waging illegitimate war and generally just fucking things up and killing thousands just for the sake of funnelling money into the right pockets" for thousands of years. If you want to hold us (America) responsible for every action our country has been engaged in, I would wager that our 250 year history is nothing compared to the rampant bloodshed, Feudalism, and barbaric nature of 95% of the planet.

The fucking Swiss.

Laundered money for the Nazis. Probably still some gold Jewish teeth rattling in a few bank vaults over there.

if he cannot or is unwilling to operate in a country, as per the laws of said country, it is not his privilege to pass judgment. He can opt to pack all his employees and leave, without risking their lives.

Whose laws?When a country has multiple groups claiming to be the government which set do you follow?

When there is ambiguity on who is in charge, do you think there would be respect for the laws, whomsoever made them?

What about when the government is obviously not legitimate?

Rennard is not a judge, to pass judgment or rule on legitimacy. If he feels threatened operating in a country, legitimate or not, he should pull out his employees. Their security is more important than his desire to make money operati

Typical randian freemarket crap - how much for the risk of decapitation and having your head and body found in separate ditches (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_abduction_of_foreign_engineers_in_Chechnya) and ignoring the point that France telecom is ex PTT (ie civil service) and so would take its cue from foreign ministry or DGSE.

Whose laws?
When a country has multiple groups claiming to be the government which set do you follow?

What about when the government is obviously not legitimate?

Orange basically goes where nobody else wants to go or where no sane company would ever operate to get money. They haven't really been able to compete very well with bigger, established players in more developed countries (with some exceptions) so they look for what you might call "garbage revenue streams" by going where there's little to no competition. Given that, they're likely to listen to anybody in charge and not ask questions if they think that doing so will preserve their revenue streams. This le

He was discussing a moral obligation to attempt to keep the lines of communication up.
He never said he could not keep them up, or that he could not stay in business. Perhaps you should actually read the article. Mmm Kay?

He can opt to pack all his employees and leave, without risking their lives.

Absolutely. Indeed, as he is quoted in the article:

Firstly, we have to protect our 2,000 employees in this region... You just have to be able to protect your people in the country."

The article goes on to ask whether Orange has a corporate responsibility to keep communications running in situations such as this, and Rennard replies:

“In the end, I decided to send just three members of staff back, because if the network goes down, the public will ask, where were you when we needed you? But if I send these three guys back, and one of them is killed, that is on my conscience and I have to live with that. It’s not an easy decision to make, but this is my job.”

For a CEO, its worse not being able to keep up appearances at the local country club than having a few dozen technicians' testicles wired to a Tazer.

I used to work for a utility that, thanks to the incompetence of a few managers, killed a number of linemen. The managers were never removed, it being an issue of them having to maintain appearances in the community. The company eventually lost their construction department, thanks to pressure from the state disability insurance program. And a

I'd imagine that these guys are the ones that would see the most value in the sorts of long-duration persistent experiments in putting repeaters, etc. into aerostats, drones, even low-altitude satellites, etc - it would seem that getting the hardware into the stratosphere would provide three huge advantages:1) on a tactical level it gets your hardware up out of the reach of people, generally. I have to imagine that vandalism, theft, and malicious mischief makes the maintenance of (even something as capital-cheap as) a cell network a bloody challenge (sometimes literally)2) on a more strategic level, having these things up out of (easy) reach of a government can likewise somewhat allow the carrier to maintain a neutrality as far as traffic that they might otherwise find difficult. Governments have many, many ways that they can put pressure on carriers organizationally and financially, sure, but at least this would remove one lever. (OK, it wouldn't be removed; a government could likely take down a persistent UAV given enough motivation - but launching a ground to air missile is a little more obvious and blatant.)3) finally, to have the hardware easily-removable from the geographic area.

I work in the 5th poorest country in the world (Guinea-Bissau, West Africa) where Orange is the only internet provider and one of the three telecom providers. Last report I saw, we, the 5th poorest country, have THE most expensive (for what you get) telecom/internet service in the world.

I spent a lot of time researching autocratic leaders (call them Dictators, or just "Dicks" if you like) when writing the Dictator's Handbook (http://www.dictatorshandbook.net/ [dictatorshandbook.net]) and the research shows that despite promises to the contrary about the benefits of privatization, clever dictators can still have their way with privately-run services like cellphone companies. It's normal - almost expected - in much of the world for calls to be monitored, intercepted, dropped, and blocked. Everyone knows the SMS outage stories (Belarus, Russia, Egypt, to name just a few) but it goes way beyond that. Most of the commercial gadget conveniences that have made life easier have benefitted autocrats as well, who have new ways to track, monitor, and basically hassle its people. Chapters 4 and 11 of the Handbook cover it in depth. Now we get to smart phones, facebook accounts, linkedin profiles, and all the happy social media stuff: it's all a treasure trove for autocrats. The research dug up anecdotes about Iranians dragged in for questioning and presented with copies of their own email, cellphone call record, and worse.

If you want to weaken dictators, I don't think Twitter is the way to go. Shortwave radio was just as effective, if not more, and it was a hell of a lot harder to block. Cellphone operators are absolutely in a tough spot: required to meet quality-of-service rules while simultaneously kissing the Dictator's Ass. It's not an enviable place to be in, I can assure you.